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Foursquare launching 14 new European cities today (update: it’s 15)

Good news for those of you desperate to play Foursquare, the hugely popular location-based game: new European cities are being switched on today.

Until now London and Amsterdam were the only European cities able to play.

We’ve been playing with the prelaunch testing of these cities for the past few days and can reveal that lined up for launch today are: Athens, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dublin, Helsinki, San Antonio, Madrid, Manchester, Paris, Prague, Rome and Stockholm. (UPDATE: plus Geneva too).

Speaking on Foursquare’s support forum, co-founder Dennis Crowley says that a further round of non-European cities would be launching soon.

“We’re working towards a “Foursquare everywhere” model – so you’ll just be able to play wherever you happen to be… “featured city” or random suburb. Hoping to have this out in the next few weeks.”

Foursquare has achieved a hugely positive response in its short life thus far, especially in New York and San Francisco where the blogorati have made it a posterchild for the new wave of location-based services.

Although largely designed to be a game in which players compete to unlock badges for completing tasks and to become the ‘Mayor’ of locations they frequently visit, it has taken off as a social networking tool as well. Many users have stories of how knowing where their friends were has led to opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have experienced.